Losing Until We Win: Realistic Revolution in Science Fiction

When a science-fiction villain is defeated, we often see the heroes take their victory lap and then everyone lives happily ever after. But that’s not how real struggles work: In real life, victories are followed by repairs, rebuilding, and reparations, by analysis and introspection, and often, by new battles. Science-fiction author and science journalist Annalee Newitz knows social change is a neverending process, and revolutions are long and sometimes kind of boring. Their novels and nonfiction books, however, are anything but boring—they write dynamically about the future we actually want and can attain, not an idealized and unattainable daydream. They’re involved in a project called “We Will Rise Again,” an anthology pairing science fiction writers with activists to envision realistically how we can do things better as a neighborhood, a community, or a civilization. Newitz speaks with EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley about depicting true progress as a long-haul endeavor, understanding that failure is part of the process, and creating good law as a form of world-building and improving our future.